John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

We have hope for you because in spite of your obvious pain and pessimistic view of the future, you have nonetheless reached out for help. (Published 2/19/2013)

Q:

I buried my only child four years ago. He was in his early 20's. I feel so alone and cry for him every single day. I'm married and love my husband very much. He's the reason I did not take my own life. I find this world a mean and ugly place without my son in it. I will never have grandchildren or a daughter in law. I am a Buddhist and have no belief in god to fall back on. I believe that my son awaits me and I am wasting my unwanted life here. I have tried grief counseling and can find no solution in this life. Can you tell me if I will ever start to feel good again or take a interest in anything in this life?

A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear Anon,

Thanks for your note, though we imagine it was painful for you to write.

Not knowing the nature or content of the “grief counseling” you tried that didn’t seem to help, it’s awkward for us to comment. Although, over the years we’ve been contacted by thousands of people who said something similar.

Many of them had been in some kind of grief support group, which tends to support the expression of pain and rarely helps people with actions of recovery or completion.

What gives us hope on your behalf, is that in spite of your obvious pain and pessimistic view of the future, you have nonetheless reached out to us with your question about whether you will ever start to feel good again.

The answer is yes, you can, but only if you take a set of actions that will help you become emotionally complete with your son who died. The actions that can help you are detailed in The Grief Recovery Handbook [available in most libraries and bookstores]. Get the book and start taking the actions it outlines.

By the way, we must tell you that many, many people who believe[d] in God, who were affected by a tragic loss, experience a “loss of faith in God,” so they lose that alleged fall-back position. The group we’ve observed that most often have that happen, are those who had a child die.

While we never compare or rank losses, we know that the death of a child is so tremendously difficult for people to adapt to and find a way to move forward in their lives. As you read the The Grief Recovery Handbook, you’ll become aware that it was the death of his three day old son, that caused Grief Recovery Institute founder, John W. James, to develop this program, in order to save his own life.